The Veep Thread

1. Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer
2. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson
3. Former Sen. Sam Nunn
4. Sen. Chuck Hagel
5. Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland

 

My list of five for Obama are much different than most:

1. Senator Joe Biden
2. Fmr. Congressman and WH CoS Leon Panetta
3. Fmr. Treasury Sec. Bob Rubin
4. Fmr. Congressman Dick Gephardt
5. Fmr. Senator Bob Graham

 

I can't believe I forgot about Gephardt, he's definitely on my list.

 

Names to cross off lists:

HRC

 

Bye, bye.

 

Panetta's out of there after that bullshit performance on CNN today. Biden's a liability; so is Gephardt. Rubin would be interesting. Graham is the most popular governor Florida ever had and would be a very interesting choice.

 

The singular charm of Biden remains his weighty foreign-policy expertise.
Whether that may overcome his stout tendency to bloviate is another story.

 

It won't.

 

Except Harold Ford Jr. came within 2 1/2 points of being elected the state's US Senator and he comes from one of the most hated families in the state!

The main draw for Bredesen beyond being able to turn the neat trick of being from New York, with a Physics Degree from Harvard and yet being twice elected as a Southern Democratic Governor, is that he started and ran one of America's most successful health care companies...and he has great ideas on how to fix the country's health care crisis...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Bredesen

 

Oh, I'm well aware of Bredesen's qualities. But he wouldn't be enough to help Obama run up the totals in Memphis and Knoxville (Nashville would likely split); and all of East Tennessee is ridiculously bad for Obama, demographics-wise.

If you thought the "Call me, Harold" ads were bad, wait until they make a run at Obama in places like that. Most of the South is gone, except perhaps Virginia, North/South Carolina and Georgia.

 

I didn't see Panetta's performance.

And what exactly makes someone a liability as a vice-president? Here would be my list:

1. Takes away votes that the presidential nominee would earn with virtually any other running mate (i.e. veep is hated in a particular swing state or by a particular voting bloc. As an extreme, never-going-to-happen example, putting Pat Buchanan on your ticket will cost you virtually all Jewish votes)
2. Creates controversy with past indiscretions, whether those be sexual, financial, etc.
3. Has tendency to go completely off message and is gaffe-prone. Can also be combined with having such a large ego that he or she would be unwilling to be the complete pawn of the top of the ticket.
4. Has publicly and repeatedly criticized nominee to the point that they can't pass the laugh test when they now praise the top of the ticket (must go beyond the typical campaign blather. See Reagan/Bush 1980.)

I can acknowledge the argument that between the plagiarism and "colorful" speech, Biden violates 2 and 3.

But Gephardt isn't a liability. Gephardt appeals to the same voters that Hillary does -- blue collar, less educated workers in the Rust Belt without having direct associations with the Clinton campaign. He helps in a swing state (Missouri). He definitely has experience and would be great in working with Congress to get legislation passed. It allows Obama to say, "We are going to bring about the kind of change that America wants. But we can't do that in the abstract. If you want change you can believe in, it requires being able to get good legislation through Congress. With Dick Gephardt at my side, we will be able to do that. If you want an administration that is going to look out for the least among us -- the old, the poor, the working man who has watched jobs be shipped overseas while his paycheck gets smaller and medical bills get larger, Dick Gephardt is the kind of bulldog vice-president we can be proud of."

 

Supposedly, Ford came back up in the polls after those ads because there was a pretty severe backlash.